Irish Vampires, Being Integra's Heir, and Other Reasons I Hate My Life
by Zalgo Jenkins
Summary: The Battle of London ended decades ago. The Hellsing Organization's secrecy ended with it. Now, Integra has sent her successor-to-be on his first mission – to investigate an outbreak in Ireland. Alas, growing up as a medical experiment in a household where his only male role model turns into a teenage girl and eats people might have left a few gaps in Cyril Hellsing's education…
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** After finally getting (a little) more time these days - and having watched most of the last half of Hellsing OVA X- I was in the mood for a short, sharp adventure story rather than a collection of snippets. This will be the first chapter.

It's AU, diverging from canon sometime around the last OVA. A take on the fandom's "Integra finally tries for an heir" theme - with hopefully enough of the usual Hellsing weirdness intact.

* * *

**England, 2030's**

It was that time of year again - the anniversary of the Battle of London.

I'd weaved my microfilament wires into a cat's cradle. They glinted in fading light. The sun had sunk low over the Hellsing estate, highlighting the pond's ripples in orange.

I inhaled. Young grass and dirt. Somewhere, a bird spat a rapid _whit-whit-whit-whit_, and I punctuated each of the bird's cries by flicking the wires across the yarrow. Yellow flowers jumped from their stems as I decapitated each in turn. It looked a little like a field of popcorn going off. Fifty or sixty in a few moments - a yellow carpet of petals.

A deep draught of home. I hadn't realized how peaceful it could be here. Definitely not as a kid, when I'd splashed across the muddiest paths of the Hellsing estate. It had seemed enormous back then, and still did - endless acres of trees, fields, and ruined buildings that separated us from the rest of England. Unholy ground.

I would be managing my first operation. Soon. That's what Mother had said.

Was that why my fingers twitched a little too eagerly, and heartbeats came a little too quickly?

...Seras called it England's largest park. The Hellsing estate, that is. No civilians had lived near the place since the Round Table Hearings. Vampires don't do much for property values. Just miles and miles of vegetation crawling through broken windows and cracking cement. Human civilization reclaimed by England's wilderness. Not many animals, though.

Everything grew quickly here. Pip had joked about it once, in the years before he'd started fading into something only Seras could hear.

_The grass grows so quickly because it fears what's under the ground._

I caught a glimpse of myself in the pond. Watched my own eyes fall to the muddy Hellsing uniform. A branch must have torn the left lapel during the hike. One of the buttons was missing.

I sighed. The reflection sighed with me - a reflection with large eyes and a shock of black hair, like a kid who'd stuck his fingers in an electrical socket.

Neat-freak that she was, I don't think Mother had completely thought through the implications of experimenting on her own genetic material back in the late 2010's.

On one hand, implanting her artificially fertilized eggs into Seras for nine months should have given Mother the best of both worlds: a genetically human Hellsing who barely squeaked into _dhampir_ status by being "born" to a vampire. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. No bloodline corruption. Better reflexes. Regeneration. Improved durability. The ability to track vampires like a bloodhound.

On the other hand, there were the messes.

The horrible, horrible messes.

Legends had said that _dhampirs_ were filthy. They had neglected to mention that _dhampirs_ were only filthy because the metaphysical embodiment of slovenliness stalked them like a plague.

Hair uncombed itself. Mud practically jumped out of puddles to get into socks and pant legs. If there was the tiniest bit of dust on a tabletop, you can bet that it would find an excuse to get under your fingernails. And may the Great Guardian of Clothiers and Tailors have mercy on your soul if you wanted to take a walk in the woods, because the greenery would have none. I'd shredded so many shirts that I was starting to wonder whether daffodils had retractible claws.

In Mother's defense, she hadn't been sleeping very well during the endless idiocy of the Round Table Hearings.

Still, the Hellsing estate had its attractions, as long as -

_Schlooorp._

- you didn't sink up to your knees into nasty-smelling ooze of uncertain origin.

I thought I heard laughter somewhere in the trees.

My body's reaction came an instant later - a burning feeling traveling down my spine. Judging from its intensity, the source of the sensation was close. As if it had appeared out of nowhere.

Leaves rustled. I heard a growl, and saw a flicker of black moving in bushes. It was followed by the unmistakable glint of eyes. One after another, after another.

I grinned, and tossed up microfilament wire. It hovered around me like a gleaming halo. And my heart had finally found an excuse for its hammering.

_Beat._

_Beat._

_Beat._

"Any time, A-"

Bolts of shadow shot from the bushes. The adrenaline rush grabbed me by the throat. Almost panic. Almost frozen.

I drew the wires up. They weaved themselves into glittering mesh. Shadows splashed against them. Some exploded into red light, which licked the outer edges of the shield like tongues of flame.

When this failed, they drew back and coagulated. The shadowy mass shot forward again, and my wires bent with the impact. They didn't break. The shadows must have hammered against my shield three or four times - like watching the tide come in.

At last, the shadows withdrew. More blackness gathered. More glowing red wisps of energy hung around the shadows' edges. Dozens of eyes opened, and the narrower part of the mass warped until it became a muzzle.

A demon dog grinned. Saliva dripped on the ground from hundreds of teeth, and its wormlike body uncoiled. I mentally screamed at my fingers to loosen.

...Which wasn't working.

Oh shit. _Loosen_. For the love of-

The creature lunged. It was like watching a fifty ton centipede skittering toward you on fast-forward. I threaded wires as quickly as I could, and threw them into the creature's path. They cut with a wet schlick. The creature's snout parted down the middle. Fluid splashed from its bisected brain. Open jaws passed each side of my head without closing.

My own blood was flowing from the soft skin on the back of my fingers, where a regular human's fingernails would have been. Warmth dampened my gloves.

Another _dhampir_ symptom, and an inconvenient one.

The demon dog snarled. Collected itself. Lunged again. The creature's body slid around a tree so quickly that it stripped the bark, giving off a shriek like a buzzsaw.

I managed to jump away. My fingers danced as they tried to attach the hooks. And kept bleeding.

For the thousandth time, I envied Mother's long-dead butler. Even when he'd been my age, Walter C. Dornez's mastery of microfilament wires must been unreal. My fingers' sensitivity and lack of fingernails only formalized an already existing disparity - sending it from "mismatch" to "you can't be serious".

One...

I curled my index finger. The demon-dog's mouth was pried open. It yelped.

Two-three...

Thumb. Middle. Hooks yanked the creature's face to the left. It careened into a tree. A loud crack followed, driving splinters into its body. Its emotions were filtering down the wires. I could sense...joy, and mounting pain. Wait. Correction. Joy _from_ mounting pain.

Four...

The creature growled and pulled on its leash. Hard. It nearly sent me sprawling. I dug in my heels, and hissed as the wires cut deeper into my fingers.

It pulled again. I redirected the movement into a building, which exploded in a shower of concrete.

The sting in my fingers sharpened once again. They were leaden, and burning from the strain. And then, the sting intensified into insistent pain - the kind you get from putting your hand on a hot stovetop. My eyes were tearing up, and I couldn't see quite as well.

Not...quite...yet-

"AAAGH!"

With an almighty _twwaaang_, the wires bit through my fingers until they reached bone. They were yanked down again, toward my fingertips, shearing off any tissue in their way. It was like watching someone peeling off a glove.

The creature howled, and flew toward my throat.

I jammed my right hand into my holster, and forced the remains of my trigger finger into its proper place.

I wasn't fast enough. Not by a long shot. The creature slammed into me. It wasn't a tackle as much as a bullet train to the chest. My misdirected shots sent a couple silver bullets skyward.

And then, twelve rows of fangs were hovering over me. The creature's breath was dry and hot, like standing next to an open oven. Shadows pinned my arms to the ground.

Baskerville's image. A creature that looked just like the phantom that had terrorized the English moors - but wasn't.

The shadows morphed again.

The hundred-eyed dog melted. Shrank. Paled.

Fur became sheeny black hair. The muzzle retracted into a human mouth, high cheekbones, and tiny nose. Arms grew from the creature's sides. Shadows folded around the body, until they became a white suit and fur hat. The "girl" grinned, showing off a mouthful of fangs.

Only the eyes remained unchanged. Large and red, like an animal's.

The "girl" looked about my own age - and remained a couple inches from my face. She was panting. Her shadow aura still pinned me to the ground, pulsating with each breath. Tightening.

"Well," she said. "Looks like I've caught you, 'squirrel'."

It was an old, not-so-affectionate nickname from Mother - back when I was a toddler, and used to climb up Hellsing's walls. A play on "Cyril", my actual name.

"I'm seventeen now, not-"

"She" dragged her fangs down my neck. Just softly enough not to break the skin. A warning. Goosebumps prickled up where she touched.

"I'm over six hundred," 'she' whispered. "And I'll call you what I bloody well please."

"Um..."

The creature placed her index finger under my chin, and pushed until we were nose to nose. Her eyes flicked down to my uniform, which had become a tattered canvas of mud, blood, and grass stains. A few weeds had somehow gotten tangled in my hair.

She smirked.

"You're all dirty again, Cyril," she said. "And before the anniversary dinner, too. Your mother be so displeased."

"Memorializing the time you ate London," I said. "You just want your annual treat."

The creature raised an eyebrow. Frowned.

"Memorializing the humans who gave their lives against monsters," she said. "Or perhaps you're jealous of the affections I lavish on Sir Integra? Mmh?"

Those red eyes were boring into me again. I looked away.

"Don't be ridic-"

She leaned close to my ear.

"As well you should be, boy," she said. "Your mother ages like fine wine. You're not there yet - and may never be. Hellsing's vampires are inherited. My respect is earned."

"I chopped your fake Baskerville in half, didn't I?"

She glanced at my hands. A new layer of pale skin had already formed over my fingertips. Tissues and veins were growing under it. Like watching a sack getting filled.

She ran a glove along my arm until it was smeared red, and then daintily licked the blood off her fingers.

"You seem to have forgotten that I'm not as forgiving as Seras," she said. "Are you dead yet, boy?"

"What?"

"Because if you're not, I'm wondering why you stopped fighting five minutes ago...with your enemy still on your chest."

"Wait. That's-"

She clapped one hand over my mouth. Her other hand drew back, near her head. Her fingers went rigid. Like a spear. My eyes widened, and I tried to kick her off.

She moved. Her "spear" cut through my shoulder. And _hurt_. Shit, did it hurt. I screamed into "her" glove. Blood sprayed. Not content with the damage, she wiggled her fingers around in the wound, while I writhed like an insect caught on a hook.

And then, she leaned back.

The girl's body rippled. Grew. Shadows expanded around "her" until a lean man in a red duster towered in "her" place. But he had the same smirk.

He removed his hand from my mouth.

"AAAAAAAGGH!" I said.

Alucard scowled.

"I promised your mother that you would be _prepared_ for your first mission, Little Master," he said. "Hellsing operatives do not spar with vampires. They kill them."

My head was swimming a little - not just from the blood loss, but from my frantic attempts to regenerate. My body sensed panic. Blood, regrowing muscle, and adrenaline oozed to my shoulder in record time.

"You-agh-you _can't_ be killed," I hissed.

Alucard smirked, and stood up. That ridiculous fedora appeared from the shadows over his head.

"Who knows?" he said. "Someday, you may be the one to pull it off. Oh...and your mother wanted you home twenty minutes ago. They're serving the hors d'oeuvres."

"You tell me this _now_-"

But Alucard was already gone. Vanished, courtesy of his omnipresent quantum weirdness.

Well, that had been even more disturbing that usual. I lay there for a while, waiting for flesh to reknit.

Finally, I staggered to my feet and headed for the Manor. The skin around the wound had already numbed. I still must have looked paler than a three-day-old corpse, but at least I wasn't bleeding anymore. With luck, I could sneak inside and clean up before any of Mother's guests could see me.

And it would have to be an _epic_ cleanup. Messed-up hair, a shredded uniform, mud everywhere, bloodstains, demon-dog saliva (which I noted, with some annoyance, that Alucard had failed to dematerialize), foul-smelling gunk on my legs -

I stopped. A furry creature blocked my path. It snarled. I noted the white stripe down its back.

"Oh, no," I said. "That's not...wait a minute. You're not even _native_ to England."

The skunk, heedless of its theoretical geographic range, snarled again. An escaped pet? A descendant of one of the London Zoo's former residents? Not that it mattered. Whatever the explanation, my personal daemon of uncleanliness deserved points for creativity.

I briefly considered reaching for my microfilament wires, but ultimately bowed to the inevitable.

* * *

When I finally reached the Manor, I scampered up one of the drainpipes. Thanks to a few scribbled Hermetic circles, Seras's aura didn't extend to my room. I climbed through the window.

The bath(s) took awhile. My skin burned from one industrial-strength cleaning product after another. Years of supernaturally enhanced messes had ensured that I had the tools for the job - and being a regenerator had its "advantages".

"Ow. Ouch. Agck..."

I emerged half an hour later, smelling like something the Germans had unleashed on Allied trenches at Ypres. I stumbled down the steps, and followed the scent of rare steak with my few surviving vestiges of an olfactory system.

If I could just sneak onto the veranda-

"Master! Where _were_ you?"

I blinked the remaining stinging from my eyes. Looked up at the bannister. A blonde, crimson-eyed woman in uniform was doing her best to glare down at me.

"Sorry, Seras," I said.

She crossed her arms.

"That doesn't answer my question, Master. Sir Integra specifically sent Alucard to retrieve you, and you know how the-"

"Skunk attack."

Seras blinked.

"Wait," she said. "How does that even-"

"No idea."

Seras sighed, and then phased through the bannister. Flickers of crimson appeared where she'd passed through the wood. She floated to the ground, and took my hand.

"Let's get it over with," she said.

Seras opened the door, and we stepped through.

The veranda was almost empty. No partygoers in black suits and ties. No trays overflowing with Champagne. Steam was still wafting invitingly from a few plates of barely-cooked filet mignon - except for Alucard's, which was a bloody mess.

"Cyril Quentin Arthur _Hellsing_! Where on earth were you?"

Mother, you see, was still under the impression that my mental development had stalled at age ten or so. Her glasses glinted dangerously. I've never figured out how they developed the same intimidating glare as their owner. Osmosis, maybe.

Alucard was kneeling at her feet. Mother's finger was still extended with Alucard's "anniversary treat" - a bead of virgin blood that hadn't yet dripped into his open mouth.

For just a moment, Alucard's face morphed into a girl's again. "She" leered at me.

"I...apologize, Ma'am," I said. "Unavoidably detained."

Mother's eyes narrowed.

"You were aware of this event beforehand."

I nodded. Swallowed.

"...We will speak about this later," she said "For now - and despite this negligent little display - it seems that circumstances have intervened to give you your first real assignment."

The whole room seemed to go into slow motion.

"Ma'am, you mean-"

"At seven o'clock this evening, a village in County Derry disappeared. Vampiric activity was confirmed at seven-forty, when Her Majesty's _official_ anti-vampire taskforce lost a team and two drones."

My fingers twitched. I forced them still.

"Er...I was under the impression that the _Baobhan Sidhe_ had gotten quieter after the bloodbanks-for-peace deal. Ma'am."

Mother's eye twitched. "Appeasement," she'd called it. But Her Majesty's Government hadn't been in any position to listen to Hellsing after news of the Battle of London had leaked out. Mother had barely avoided going to war with Parliament to "protect" her vampires.

(Not that they'd needed protection...)

"Evidently not," Mother said.

Was that a note of relish in her voice? Probably not. But something else bothered me.

"Are we sure it's not Section XIII?" I said. "Derry's right on our jurisdictional border."

Mother took a deep drag on her cigar. Smoke swirled upward into the evening air.

"We're not sure of anything," she said. "That's where you come in. It's about time you fully commanded an operation. Take Seras with you."

My eyes wandered. Seras was sitting on the edge of the veranda, staring across the Hellsing estate's misty fields. Mayflies flitted around the light above her. Little white ghosts. I caught the faintest outline seated next to Seras, leaning on her shoulder. A long-haired man in green. And then, it was gone.

"No human soldiers?" I said. "Other weapons?"

Mother permitted herself a thin smile.

"You must be confusing this operation with the days when we had a budget."


	2. Chapter 2

The night had become warmer by the time we left. The air crackled with the beginnings of lightning storms.

Grandfather's black Rolls Royce cars were waiting for us, complete with mudguards and external headlights that looked like goggles. Walter's only children. Hellsing's butler had maintained them religiously after the Second World War. How they'd survived the last thirty years, I had no idea.

Seras opened the door for me with a clunk. The headlights had bleached Seras's colors out: her hair and skin looked even ghostlier than usual. I sat down. Shifted. The grey leather squeaked, and the door closed behind me.

Right, so...

I racked my brain for the other stuff that I'd gone over a thousand times. Vampires couldn't cross large bodies of water under their own power. Even Alucard didn't "cross" so much as appear on a different side. Okay. Close down the bridges, airports, ferries. Plug the gaps with as much esoteric stuff as possible. Fortunately, Northern Ireland had recently finished its anti-freak canal system. The whole place looked like a grid.

The convoy drove down the Manor's path to the sound of purring engines and crumbling gravel. I caught myself fiddling with the microfilament wires.

_Tworp._

_Twing._

With any luck, we'd be dealing with artificial vampires. Or younger "natural" ones. I wasn't all that picky - just as long as they couldn't shapeshift. It would be nice to fight vampires who were _only_ superhuman regenerators for once-

"And if they're not?" said a voice

"Gah!"

Alucard smirked in the seat next to me.

Red eyes illuminated the web of wires that I'd weaved around Alucard's neck (and the fold-out trays, and the door handles, and apparently my left shoe...) by half-panicked instinct.

"You're thinking too quickly," he said. "And not carefully enough. Assume the worst."

A thrill ran through my stomach. We'd need to keep an eye out for everything from bats to red mist. K-9 units would help slightly. At least they could sense the things...

...Yeah, we were looking at a _really_ tough perimeter setup.

Alucard grinned with his mouthful of steak knives. His eyes burned under the fedora's shadow.

"Nervous, boy?"

_Like you wouldn't believe..._

"The Director of Hellsing created me to do a job," I said. "I'm going to carry it out."

The smile dimmed slightly. Alucard stared out the window, as long-deserted hills and stone walls rolled by.

"Ahhhh," he said. "So that's it. Much easier to have been born a storm, mh? Or a bayonet."

"You're quoting Anderson.""

When Alucard's eyes crinkled with the smile, they almost looked their age.

"Anderson was a very quotable man," he said. "He just wasn't right all that often."

I glanced at the front seat, and saw Seras's profile. She was watching me through her rearview mirror. Couldn't catch much of her face, though - just shadows from the headlights. I almost wished she had a reflection.

"We'll see," I said.

Alucard ruffled my hair.

Not _affectionately_, but because he knew I'd just spent ages combing it into something halfway presentable. It gleefully unraveled into the usual mess. Alucard chuckled.

"Hey-!"

Unfortunately, he was already gone.

I sat back.

And failed. I was still strung up with about a dozen microfilament wires.

"...Lovely."

* * *

The private plane waiting for us was a good gauge of Hellsing's resources these days. I had to stoop to walk through. Seras and I barely squeezed into the tan leather seats, which looked like they could use a little restoration work.

Engines buzzed, and the plane started moving. We were airborne a little later. London and the other hamlets were reduced to little points of light, like glow sticks floating in a black sea.

I spent most of the time rearranging crates of my cleaning products on the floor, so that I didn't need to contort my legs to sit down. My foot had fallen asleep.

"You might want to look out the window," Seras said.

I started, and scrambled for my wires.

"Hm?" I said. "Problem? Where?"

"Er-no..." Seras said. "I just meant - well, you don't leave Hellsing very often, Master. Less than Hellsing's vampires, even. I just thought you'd like to take a look."

I peered out the window. The sun was rising. The Irish Sea glimmered beneath us, and a flock of birds flew across it through cottonball clouds.

"At what?"

"Whatever's there."

"Why?"

"It's...well, it's what people _do_."

"I see."

Seras stared at me for a second, as if I was supposed to say something.

"...And you might want to do your own traveling someday," she said.

"India's due for another chedipe outbreak soon, but I don't know if Mother wants me to-"

"Recreationally," Seras said. "Like a vacation. For fun."

"...Oh."

"I mean, it's not like _you_ get vampiric sickness every time you cross water. Why not see a little of the world. You know?"

"Not really."

Seras winked.

"Maybe even meet somebody. Look, Cyril...I know Sir Integra has you training at the Manor constantly, but sometimes it's _nice_ to get out."

"Find other bioweapons my own age to hang out with?" I said.

"Yes, that's-wait. No."

"I mean, if Section XIII has a few trainees...assuming we could get past the 'test-tube abomination' thing, which isn't-"

"Forget I said anything. Ugh. You're as stubborn as your mother."

"Technically, you acted as a surrogate during-"

"Not. Another. Word. My life's complicated enough already."

I shrugged, and started cleaning my microfilament wires for the thousand-and-first time.

A stewardess rattled a wheeled tray down the aisle. She seemed around forty, with too much rouge and dirty blonde hair that looked dyed. I didn't recognize her from any of the previous flights.

She spent half the time stealing glances at Seras's red eyes and fangs, until Seras put on a black silk sleeping mask. Her coffin was still in the cargo hold, and we might need to go out in daylight soon. Better that than nothing.

I turned my head.

"Thank you," I said. "A little wine would be nice."

"Shall I turn on the reading light, sir?"

"Um, sure. Thanks. And maybe-"

I squinted.

The "reading light" glared like something that would be used to direct an anti-aircraft battery. I clicked a green plastic button, and hoped I'd gotten the right one. Unfortunately, it only blasted me in the face with high-pressure air conditioning. My hair ruffled. Again.

The stewardess started pouring the wine while I fumbled with the light. An "oh-let-me-help-you-with-that" died on her lips when she saw that my hand didn't cast a shadow. Her eyes widened. The bottle of wine dropped.

I awaited the inevitable.

But somehow - impossibly - the woman caught the bottle by its neck. The wine gave a plunk as it resettled.

I blinked.

"You..._caught_ that," I said.

"I-I'm sorry, sir. I should have been more careful."

I sighed.

"Well, go on," I said.

The stewardess assembled her best customer service smile.

"Sir? I'm not sure I understand..."

"Go ahead and dump it on me," I said. "We might as well get this over with."

"I...sir, are you...I already apologized, but I don't know that-"

"Not this again," Seras groaned.

The stewardess looked from me to Seras, who'd peeled her sleeping-mask off enough to rub the bridge of her nose.

"Sorry, ma'am," Seras said. "Cyril's...um, accident-prone. He has this superstition-"

"Says the vampire," I muttered.

"-_superstition_ that his clothing stains have a daily quota," Seras finished.

"They _do_," I said.

"...While he's actually just careless, and things like this only make it worse," she said.

"Ignore Seras," I said. "She's just never accepted that I'm being haunted by a supernatural aura with an abstract affinity for messes."

The stewardess's attempt at a smile wouldn't have looked out of place on Mother's old doll collection. The dolls that Mother had donated to Alucard for target practice, because they'd creeped her out.

"Oh..." the stewardess said. "I see...Um...WillThatBeAllSir?"

Without waiting for an answer, she snapped up my plate in record time and dropped it onto the tray with a clatter. She kept the wine bottle well out of reach, too.

Seras smiled.

"Remember the time I tried to wash my own clothes?" I said. "Was it 'superstition' when the septic system backed up into our washing machine-"

"Cyril, we've been through this," Seras said. "A lot."

"-and the washing machine exploded on me-"

"Just because the plumber couldn't think of an explanation doesn't mean there _wasn't_ one!"

"-and it turned out that the septic system wasn't even connected to any of the other pipes?"

Seras pointedly pulled her sleep mask over her face again, and released it. The elastic snapped back with a _fthwip_. She reclined her seat.

"You know, you'd be a lot more accommodating if _you_ were born hygienically disabled," I said.

"That's not even a thing."

"And once again, the cries of the disadvantaged go unheeded by a callous public."

More quickly than the stewardess could blink, Seras's hand shot out and snatched the bottle of wine. She held it over my head, and tipped it until the contents had drizzled onto my hair. Like most burgundy, it had a decaying, farm-yard sort of odor.

"Happy now?" Seras said.

"...It'll do."

The wine had already started to glue me to the seat as it dried. I kicked back, trying to ignore the wounded expression on the stewardess's face.

Fortunately, I'd packed _lots_ of spare suits.

I'd probably have to dunk my head in a tub of cleaning solution, too. Sure, Oxi-Clean stung my eyes almost as much as bleach did, but it was better for the environment, and I sort of liked the fizz.

A small price to pay for avoiding random attacks by sewage trucks, puddles, and paint cans when we met our contacts in Ireland.

* * *

A short time later, I stood on an airport tarmac. Squeaky clean. Our jet whined behind us. The place was bleak enough - almost no trees or grass until you reached the horizon. Just construction equipment and shanties.

I'd never seen so many people crammed into such a small space. The airport's main building was a recently expanded cube, with aquamarine windows and white segmented walls that made it look like a giant Lego project. People swarmed around the door.

"Ready, Master?" Seras said.

I looked down. My fingers were tapping against my legs, manipulating wires that weren't there. Seras had once said that it was like watching somebody playing an invisible piano. I forced them still.

"Sure. Yeah..."

We pushed our way through. Even Seras's aura didn't do much for crowd control - a couple people shied away when they saw the Hellsing emblem, but they had nowhere to go. I nearly tripped when somebody bumped me into a potted plant. Everybody seemed to treat the queueing stanchions and ropes like hopeful suggestions.

On a whim, I took a moment to buy a book at one of the kiosks before plunging back into the churning masses.

Blue monitors flashed arrival times from each column. A child in a hand-me-down _Varney's Last Stand_ t-shirt cranked a dispensing-machine. People nudged. Chewed. Yelled. Breathed. It smelled like a combination of body odor, foreign spices, and the garlic strands hanging from the ceiling pipes. Security guards passed silver items over each new arrival, while others kept assault rifles leveled at the crowd.

I remember watching some old sci fi flicks with Alucard during one of his rare deviations from _Die Hard_ marathons. It was mostly 90's stuff - from before London, and the Crash that had followed. I'd gasped at all those shiny surfaces, flying cars, and supercomputers. Fossilized futures. Worlds where you could hop onto a plane and go _anywhere_.

I wonder what they'd think of us now. Crammed into our fortified hamlets, with our daily inspections, lifesign chips, and everything. Millenium had been the first domino. The rest had fallen in a predictable path: alternating human crackdowns and vampire escalation. The Third World had gotten the worst of it, as usual.

It's a morbid little game to play when you're in the mood. How much progress could we have bought with a few thousand vampire victims a year, and ignorance? How much more processor speed if we'd never known that Wilbur down the street had been eaten?

On the bright side, we had _lots_ of spare garlic.

Something burned on the back of my neck - as if I'd stepped into a scalding shower. I stiffened. Looked around. Seras tapped me on the shoulder, and pointed.

"Our...contact, Master."

I peered through the glass doors, and saw him standing outside.

Red eyes. Pale skin. He was a lean, narrow-faced man in a ballistic vest, without even a hint of gristle on his chin. Four others stood around him: three males, and one female. All of them carried firearms that looked more like cannons.

He smiled as we headed over, carefully keeping his lips closed. The rest of his face didn't move.

"Gavin Kerr," he said. "Captain, Royal Occult Countermeasures Detachment."

The back of my neck kept prickling. There's something _off_ about artificial vampires, even beyond the usual. An extra layer of wrongness. Alucard had butchered most of the Letzte Bataillon just to get it out of his skin. He still complained about indigestion, and their souls had been gone for thirty years. Even after Pip had died, Seras hadn't finished Zorin Blitz's humiliation by consuming her.

Mother had nearly had an aneurysm when Parliament had authorized an anti-vampire force "utilizing techniques pioneered by the Millenium organization." She'd outright refused to cooperate. She'd pointed out nitpicky stuff like bloodthirst, impulse control issues, sadism, and sociopathy. They'd ignored her. Again.

Unfortunately, Millenium had created their army in a rainforest, financed with some pilfered gold. Occult knowledge, vampiric tissue, and World War II medical technology hadn't exactly been insurmountable hurdles for Her Majesty's government.

Even the self-destruct chips had only taken a couple months. Three, if you didn't count the weeks leading up to the Pen y Fan massacre that had precipitated their adoption.

Hence Captain Gavin Kerr, ROCD.

He clasped my hand, and gave another of his not-really-smiles.

"You're Sir Hellsing's dhampir?"

"His _name_," Seras said, "is Cyr-"

"Yes, I'm the Director's dhampir."

"Good. Come with me."

Kerr headed for the parking lot, and motioned for us to follow. Seras shot me one of her _looks_. I shrugged in reply.

Millenium's legacy was an annoyance that kept on giving. It wasn't that hard to find weaker vampires to bootleg, which meant that a quarter of our outbreaks these days involved humans with a little cosmetic surgery. Most of them originally affiliated with some government or other.

England had lost its monopoly before the first ROCD vampire had left the operating table. Russia and China had adopted artificial vampires into their special forces outright. Ditto a couple smaller countries. The Americans still preferred to rely on the Cotton Mather Battalion's regenerators, but they supposedly had their own vampire program in the works. (Over the Witchfinder General's objection. Unlike Mother, the President hadn't removed her yet.) And from what I heard, the Dear Leader was looking suspiciously young and pasty for a nonagenarian. Still seemed on the well-fed side, though.

"Any updates on the situation?" I said.

Captain Kerr shut the car door. Seras sat between us, but the proximity to Kerr was still enough to make every nerve wriggle.

"Hamlet 23 went quiet around seven this evening," Kerr said. "LifeChip implants just started winking out. Quickly. They're still analyzing surveillance and satellite footage to get a narrative."

"How long?" Seras said.

Kerr's eyes seemed to glow a little brighter as he traced them across Seras's body. Her warning glare washed over him without any effect.

"Might take awhile," he said.

I asked whether the tipster sites were up yet, and received a predictable "no." Aside from Chief Bradley's usual obsession with preventing "panic" in his zone, the Northern Irish gendarmes didn't know what to look for. Yet.

On the bright side, it took Kerr's attention off Seras. Wouldn't want him to lose any pieces.

"So if we go in-"

"You will," Kerr said.

"_When_ we go in, what are we looking at?" I said.

"Humans'll drop you past the canals," Kerr said. "Other than that? There's a minefield, obviously. Probably some tracked drones with silver bullets, unless the target destroyed them."

"Speaking of drones..." Seras said.

Kerr chuckled softly. He licked his lips.

"Sorry, Miss," Kerr said. "Shame sending a pretty young girl into the dark, but I can't give you air support. Drones can screw with vampire precog, but we can't risk something hopping aboard."

Seras's aura flared ever so slightly - a cold miasma of shadows and distilled panic. Kerr winced.

"I'll manage, Captain."

"...O-of course."

"Any news about our neighbors in the south?" I said.

Kerr shook his head. Partly to clear it.

"No reports of movement from Section XIII," he said. "Then again, if it's Heinkel, there wouldn't be."

"Great," Seras muttered.

Well, it could be worse. Spend enough time chatting with the Puritan fanatics at the Court of Oyer and Terminer across the Atlantic, and you started to appreciate middle-of-the-road types like Alexander Anderson and Heinkel Wolfe.


End file.
